Poem In The Poisonwood Bible By Barbara Kingsolver

In the novel, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, Kingsolver uses different literary techniques to develop the harsh setting and have the characters look weak and overwhelmed. The literary techniques used to define the characters and the setting are violent imagery and violent juxtaposition.

Just like the first book in the Bible, the first book of The Poisonwood Bible is named Genesis. As well as the beginning, Genesis can also mean rebirth. When characters arrive in the Congo they realize the things they brought with them are changed by Africa and can no longer be as they once were. In this way, Genesis symbolizes the process of becoming their new selves. For instance, the first chapter in The Poisonwood Bible, narrated by Orleanna, strongly shows the guilt that the Congo had left her to live with after the death of Ruth May. Likewise, Eve, the first woman in Genesis, forced all of mankind to shoulder the guilt of eating the forbidden fruit.

Though her inner thoughts throughout The Poisonwood Bible express her dissent from Nathan’s ideas and words, she stays meek outwardly towards her husband, as she fears his religious wrath. For most of the novel, she gradually grows more and more inactive, weighed down by her husband’s abominable parenting and sanctimonious fury. However, everything changes when her six-year-old daughter, Ruth May, is fatally bitten by a green mamba.

In The Eyes in the Trees, the metaphor of Methuselah as the Congo comes full circle when Ruth May

From the time people are born to their last moments of childhood, they invest in an object of security, something to keep them safe, something to always be there. The true mark of adulthood comes from abandoning this security item to walk forward without any weight. Just like all people, Leah in Barbara Kingsolver’s “The Poisonwood Bible” was no different. Leah spent her whole life clinging on to her father, Nathan, and as a result, she was blinded to what truly mattered to her. The loving presence of a family could not be seen behind his controlling ways. Her dependence on him kept herself from realizing whom she actually cared about. Moreover, the reliance on Nathan meant her actions were truly not her own. Rather

Imperialism has been a strong and long lasting force, oppressing societies for generations on end. The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver, demonstrates how the Congo is continuously affected by this concept and ideology. Throughout this story, Kingsolver manipulates each family member and individual within the book, to better show Western and European ideas and attitudes, to convey the large amount of hypocrisy, in foreigner’s actions.

Barbara Kingsolver is the author of many well-written pieces of literature including The Poisonwood Bible. This novel explores the beauty and hardships that exist in the Belgian Congo in 1959. Told by the wife and four daughters of a fierce Baptist, Nathan Price, Kingsolver clearly captures the realities this family and mission went through during their move to the Congo. The four daughters were raised in Atlanta Georgia in the 1950’s therefore entering the Congo with preconceived racial beliefs, and a very different way of life than they would soon experience. Throughout The Poisonwood Bible Kingsolver explores the importance and impact of faith, and a religion based on your own private beliefs.

I was curious as to how did the title The Poisonwood Bible associated with the text. The form of this novel is written in a similar pattern as the biblical bible. The words “Poisonwood” first appeared when Mama Tataba warns Nathan not to touch the poison plant. The second time the words occurs from a mispronunciation. Adah narrated, “TATA JESUS IS BANGALA... Banglala means something precious and dear. But the way he pounces it, it means the poisonwood tree” (276). Nathan makes this mistake over and over. His mistakes here help indicates the theme of ignorance even more. It also reinforces the theme of language, as to how power language can be. There is an irony here as to pastor Nathan is trying to preach to the Congolese about how Jesus is

Sympathy, another theme in this book, can have the same amount of impact on an individual.  Instead of it having a negative reaction to the reader it has a superior reaction to the reader.  ?Lee Chong? knew he could not have helped it, but he wished he might have known and perhaps tried to help.  It was deeply a part of Lee?s kindness and understanding that man?s right to kill himself is inviolable, but sometimes a friend can make it unnecessary?(Page 2).  Lee was having compassionate sentiments for the man who committed suicide.  He had a deep feeling that he could of helped in someway to convince the man that his life was worth living.  A side story that was important to the theme of Sympathy was a story about Mrs. Kitty Casini a mouse and Mary Talbot ?Kitty Casini had a mouse?Daintily she stabbed the mouse through the back and drew it wriggling to her and her tail flicked with tense delight? ?I can?t blame Kitty Casini? said Mary. ?I?m just not going to like her no matter how much I want to??(Pages 155-156).  Mary had intense sympathy for that mouse that with no doubt died a tragic death.  She went to the extreme of disliking on of her favorite cat.  Sympathy can bring about the good in people.  Sympathy for loved ones or strangers can surprise one for their intense emotions.

1909, over one hundred years ago, was the death of King Leopold of Belgium the sole owner of the Congo. Even years after he has left this earth and is no longer in the reign, the long-lasting effects he has had on the people and the land has forever changed the Congo. The memories left behind from the atrocities that occurred and the diminished resources due to extreme exploitation has prompted the author Adam Hochschild to write the novel, King Leopold’s Ghost. Using an Afrocentric point of view Hochschild describes how the events that took place under Leopold’s orders were acts of true terror and inhumanity.

Sympathy. Feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune. In the novel 'Of Mice and Men', there a numerous characters you may feel sympathetic toward. Most especially Curley's wife. I hold the most compassion for Curley's wife because she was misunderstood and innocently killed.

In the three novels, We Need New Names, The White Tiger, and Beasts of No Nation by NoViolet Bulawayo, Aravind Adiga, and Uzodinma Iweala, respectively, the specificity and non-specificity of the location in the novels have a profound effect in the way the underlying ideas are tied together. More explicitly, We Need New Names and The White Tiger rely on the specific location of the setting to aid in attaining the main goals that are achieved throughout the texts. However, in Beasts of No Nation, it is rather the opposite. Iweala’s strategy to write a story with the absence of a specific location creates a strong case throughout the text that demonstrates three important factors: pre-conceived notions about the text have an influence in our understanding of the content, the story itself becomes more real when we eliminate the location and finally, it makes characters, particularly Agu, more relatable.

In the story, The Interlopers Hector Munro creates a setting of a windy, dark, and wet forest to raise the suspense in the story. This specific setting keeps the reader on the edge of their chair constantly wondering what’s going to happen next. The setting affects the conflict, climax, theme, and the atmosphere of the story. The forest setting affects the conflict in many ways.

Most poems can always be similar in some way, shape, or form. Poems can be similar in areas such as the voice used throughout the poem, the figures of speech used throughout the poem, and/or the theme or themes used throughout the poem, along with many others. The voice of a poem is usually the writing style, kind of the tone of the poem.The voice that compares with “you fit into me” is silly and lovable at first but then quickly becomes dark and harrowing. Towards the beginning of the poem, the poem was more about the “hook and eye” ,as on page 396, but then it quickly became more brutal and filled with darker ways. Atwood then started using surprises throughout her story such as replacing “a clothing fastener or door latch” with the “metal

I gazed up at the mountain now drenched in light red and squinted, trying to keep my eyes open, as the bright sharp light burnt into my eyes. Struggling to keep my eyes open, I finally closed them unable to the pain any longer; I wiped my watery eyes and thought where Samneric’s fire was? There was a rumble inside me, and I looked hopefully at the jungle wondering if I could find Samneric’s fire as well as something to eat. In the morning light the jungle seemed like an old and tattered rug chewed to bits by moths, yet despite this the jungle and the whole island was beautiful shining in the sun’s warmth. I kept on walking as the jungle beckoned me calling me with its beauty. As I passed between the trees, the canopy overhead plunged me into velvet darkness. The only source of light was from the small gaps in the shell of overlapping leaves, where the sun glistened through. Moss and lichen covered the ground in abundance, thriving in this humid atmosphere, and feeding on the eerie green light that managed to penetrate through the ceiling of emerald leaves. The strange green shade and the various knotted pillars made it impossible to see for great distances or to walk about freely.